Re: Boot on CD, transfer to USB?
> I would like to run Debian off of a USB drive using my laptop. Currently I
> run a dual boot system: Debian with Windows on the internal hard disk.
> The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite A15-S129 and will not boot to USB. I can
> boot to CD.
> Is there a way I can use the CD-ROM to boot the computer and transfer control
> so that I can run Debian from the USB drive?
You can, but I suspect it won't be pretty.
One way to get what you want is to let the boot-loader load Debian.
I.e. you'd install GRUB on your internal drive, and have separate entries
there to boot either from the internal disk or from the USB disk.
But this may not work if the BIOS doesn't see the USB drive (which is
somewhat likely if it doesn't let you boot from it).
If the BIOS doesn't see your USB drive, you'll have to go through a more
real piece of OS. The cleanest way would probably be to boot a Linux initrd
off of your internal drive (or off of a CD) and then have that mount your
USB drive. I.e. you'd have the Debian system on your USB drive, but the
kernel would be either on your internal drive or on a CDROM. Placing it on
a CDROM is rather inconvenient when you need to update to a new kernel or
a new initrd (and in order to get the thing to work, you'll probably have
to try and fiddle with your initrd a few times).
So the cleanest way would be: make room on your internal drive for a small
boot partition which will hold GRUB plus your Linux kernel(s) and their
associated initrd(s). Count 10MB per kernel, so 50MB will be sufficient
(my boot partition is around 200MB and has about 60MB used).
Stefan
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